Category: London

Lon­don

Wembley Summer Camp Open: Squat The Land, Smash School Privatisation

Teach­ers, res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers in Wem­b­ley, Brent, North West Lon­don, have re-squat­ted the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground and are call­ing out for peo­ple to join them, squat the land and join the largest protest against

Wembley Tent CityWembley treehouseTeach­ers, res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers in Wem­b­ley, Brent, North West Lon­don, have re-squat­ted the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground and are call­ing out for peo­ple to join them, squat the land and join the largest protest against the pri­vati­sa­tion of the UK edu­ca­tion sys­tem.

Brent local teach­ers, res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers have made a call out for peo­ple to help squat the land at Wem­b­ley Park Sports Ground on Bridge Road, next to Wem­b­ley Park under­ground sta­tion, and join the largest and most promi­nent cam­paign against the accel­er­at­ing pri­vati­sa­tion of the UK edu­ca­tion sys­tem, the brain child of ex-prime min­is­ter Tony Blair.

Peo­ple are asked to join the Tent City Occu­pa­tion or just vis­it, help build net­works, share infor­ma­tion and knowl­edge on non-vio­lent-direct-action, and when the con­struc­tion work­ers arrive, which could be as ear­ly as this week, help in and exe­cute non-vio­lent-direct-action to halt the project.

On 03 June 2008 Brent Town Coun­cil approved the child char­i­ty Ark pro­pos­al to begin the con­struc­tion of the pri­va­tised Wem­b­ley Acad­e­my School.

The meet­ing held by coun­cil heads at Brent Town Hall, descend­ed into farce, as the local com­mu­ni­ty, angry that they were ignored dur­ing all pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions with the coun­cil and Ark, were threat­ened with removal from the plan­ning meet­ing and the Acad­e­my plan­ning appli­ca­tion deci­sion to be made in secret, which would have been an ille­gal move on the part of the coun­cil.

That plan­ning meet­ing approved the tem­po­rary hous­ing of 200 school pupils in huts while the Ark Acad­e­my is built around them over the next two years, putting chil­dren in dan­ger on a con­struc­tion site, cranes over­hang­ing the por­ta­cab­ins and tem­po­rary accom­mo­da­tion, just so the mon­ey flow from UK tax­pay­er to the pri­va­tised school investor, and the prof­it, can start by Sep­tem­ber 2008.

One rea­son the Wem­b­ley Acad­e­my open­ing date was moved for­ward from Sep­tem­ber 2009 to 2008 was because local oppo­si­tion against the Acad­e­my and the pri­vati­sa­tion of UK edu­ca­tion has been so mas­sive in Brent, Ark thought that advanc­ing the school start date would crush the resis­tance.

Con­nec­tions are being made with the Bat­tersea Crane Dis­as­ter Group, the Con­struc­tion Safe­ty Cam­paign and the Pim­li­co school teach­ers who are also fight­ing the pri­vati­sa­tion of their school by ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist, and Tory par­ty fun­der, John Nash and his com­pa­ny Sov­er­eign Cap­i­tal.

Pim­li­co school pupils are already being put at risk, as 1050 chil­dren are being edu­cat­ed while the school is demol­ished around them. Cranes are already over­hang­ing their class rooms and con­struc­tion debris and dust believed to con­tain asbestos is sweep­ing across the play­ground into class­rooms.

But this sit­u­a­tion, autho­rised by local and nation­al gov­ern­ment, will see 200 chil­dren being edu­cat­ed in the mid­dle of a con­struc­tion site. With the cur­rent safe­ty record of UK con­struc­tion sites, it draws seri­ous con­cern for the well­be­ing of the stu­dents.

But anoth­er con­cern is pri­vate invest­ment tak­ing over the UK edu­ca­tion sys­tem, instill­ing their pri­vate, cor­po­rate, and reli­gious indi­vid­ual beliefs in the edu­ca­tion sys­tem.

The Vardy Foun­da­tion, set up by Chris­t­ian fun­da­men­tal­ist Reg Vardy, already has its hands on sev­er­al UK Acad­e­mies and has since erad­i­cat­ed evo­lu­tion from the schools, teach­ing only cre­ation­ism.

The Wem­b­ley Ark Acad­e­my will be run by french/swiss and mul­ti­mil­lion­aire Arki Bus­son — long-term friend of Tony Blair — who is known to hold what can only be described as strict Catholic beliefs.

Ark is set to run 12 UK Acad­e­my schools, six of which will be opened by Sep­tem­ber 2008.

As con­struc­tion work begins and the resis­tance turns to non-vio­lent-direct-action to halt the project, con­struc­tion could begin as ear­ly as this work, pri­vate secu­ri­ty and police are expect­ed to be employed to force evic­tion on the pro­tes­tors.

The teach­ers, res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers of Brent have asked for all to come, squat the land, save the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground and sur­round­ing green space for the local com­mu­ni­ty and wildlife, and halt the fur­ther gen­tri­fi­ca­tion of Wem­b­ley.

Bring your mum, your broth­er, your dog — squat this land, join the protest, make a stand and to say no to the pri­vati­sa­tion of UK edu­ca­tion. Say no to edu­ca­tion for prof­it. Join the Wem­b­ley Park Tent City Occu­pa­tion.

Make a stand. Say no to pri­va­tised edu­ca­tion. Get on the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Under­ground line to Wem­b­ley Park, bring a tent, bring a friend, and make a stand.

All pho­tos cour­tesy of free­lance jour­nal­ist Jason N. Parkin­son
All Stills © Jason N. Parkin­son 2008 All Rights Reserved

Tent City Occu­pa­tion (see here for con­tact details)

http://www.tentcityoccupation.co.uk/

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Pre­vi­ous cov­er­age

Anti-Acad­e­my Teach­ers Take To The Trees

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/09/380945.html

Wem­b­ley Teach­ers Say No To Pri­va­tised School­ing

http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/06/wembley-teachers-say-no-to-privatised.html

200 School Pupils In Huts On A Con­struc­tion Site

http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/06/200-school-pupils-in-huts-on.html

Save Our Schools 22-minute film avail­able on Reel News issue 13

http://www.reelnews.co.uk/

Climate Camp Bike Ride

Peo­ple will be rid­ing to the cli­mate camp, start­ing from Glas­gow, descend­ing souther­ly pick­ing up thou­sands en route.

The final leg, Lon­don to Kingsnorth is on sun­day 3 August meet­ing under Water­loo bridge (south­side) at 9am
For more info on the route and how to get involved e‑mail climatecampbikeride@lists.riseup.net
Up the the veloru­tion.

Peo­ple will be rid­ing to the cli­mate camp, start­ing from Glas­gow, descend­ing souther­ly pick­ing up thou­sands en route.

The final leg, Lon­don to Kingsnorth is on sun­day 3 August meet­ing under Water­loo bridge (south­side) at 9am
For more info on the route and how to get involved e‑mail climatecampbikeride@lists.riseup.net
Up the the veloru­tion.

London, Brighton & Manchester Critical Masses commemorate dead cyclists

June’s Crit­i­cal mass in Lon­don saw a slight­ly dif­fer­ent route. As always we met at South­bank and man­aged to leave at 7.15pm.

June’s Crit­i­cal mass in Lon­don saw a slight­ly dif­fer­ent route. As always we met at South­bank and man­aged to leave at 7.15pm.

Fol­low­ing the killing of Marie Vesco on the A23 her friends, ram­pART and Food Not Bombs asked peo­ple to ride to Brix­ton, where she served free food every Sun­day after­noon with Brix­ton Food Not Bombs.

Approx­i­mate­ly 600 cyclists left Water­loo going South via Lam­beth North, then Elephant& Cas­tle, going round a few times stop­ping the traf­fic. Via the Oval we went to Brix­ton, where we stopped at Win­drush Square. By now there were maybe 300–400 cyclists left (there was a bit of North-Lon­don snob­bery). Dif­fer­ent peo­ple spoke about Marie and how they missed her. How she died and why she worked with Brix­ton Food­Not­Bombs and how giv­ing out free food was so impor­tant to her. There was a min­ute’s silence for her.

Then we cycled North again, police stopped us halfway up towards Stock­well. They had tried to dic­tate the tem­po pre­vi­ous­ly, but rogue cyclists broke through, stopped the traf­fic ahead of the police line and in that way forced the police to let the Mass go (Health and Safe­ty and all…).

They man­aged to block Stock­well Road and we did­n’t quite get the momen­tum of break­ing through. To the cop­pers’ sur­prise the tip of the Mass turned around, cycling back on them­selves and turn­ing off the main road fur­ther down (Sid­ney Road I think). We made our way to the Oval, cycling past the Crick­et knobs, some of which were using bad lan­guage, when we came in sight. Oth­ers were sup­port­ive.

Vaux­hall Bridge end­ed up being a bit of a split­ter were we lost a few peo­ple. Going across the bridge, past Par­lia­ment we hit the square, encir­cling it a cou­ple of times, until some­thing hap­pened with the sound sys­tem (as always) not quite sure what. music stopped. Rais­ing bikes, block­ing road, we then went to see the queen. The whole ride took about two hours and a bit. Nice atmos­phere, good mix of peo­ple and bikes and so good to have some music on the way (three sound sys­tems).

What hap­pened with the sound sys­tem on the North side of Par­lia­ment Square was that the police stopped it play­ing and rid­ers strong­ly object­ed to this ban which caused a long traf­fic holdup.

The cycle police keep on tar­get­ing Crit­i­cal Mass sound sys­tems in the SOCPA zone around Par­lia­ment while doing noth­ing to stop sound sys­tems in cars, bus­es and lor­ries. Also the SOCPA leg­is­la­tion is cur­rent­ly under review and oth­er police are tend­ing not to enforce it.

video of ride.

More videos:

cycling down brix­ton road

through brix­ton high street

out­side the ritzy, enjoy­ing some tunes, before a min­utes silence in mem­o­ry of Marie Vesco

rid­ing up the mall

bring­ing the mass & some music to the queen
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Yes­ter­day the Brighton Crit­i­cal Mass month­ly bicy­cle ride was done in the mem­o­ry Marie Vesco — the young French woman who had been killed on her way from Lon­don to the Car­ni­val Against the Arms Trade, that was held on the 4th of June. We, at Crit­i­cal Mass decid­ed to com­plete her jour­ney to EDO MBM (ITT) bomb fac­to­ry that she could not make.

The usu­al meet­ing place The Lev­el, 6 p.m. saw police wait­ing for some sort of a demo. There were: 2 police vans full of cop­pers, 1 CCTV UNIT van, 6 motor­bikes, and none of the police on bicy­cles.

The ride had com­menced as have rode onto Lewes Road escort­ed by police motor­bikes. For a while it felt as if we were prime min­is­ters escort­ed to some impor­tant meet­ing.

When we had reached the bot­tom of the Home Farm Road there were few police wait­ing for us. We then went to the fac­to­ry to be aston­ished by the police pres­ence at the fac­to­ry. There were at least 40 offi­cers with dogs wait­ing for some sort of a riot.

We have held one minute silence for Marie and went back to town where after a half an hour police had left us alone.

Over­all a suc­cess.

video of ride.

============

This month Man­ches­ter crit­i­cal mass had a one minute silence to hon­our two pas­sion­ate cyclists that were killed this month by motorists, and to remem­ber all our cycling com­rades that have been killed on the roads.

NORMAN FAY
Nor­man Fay died on Fri­day, June 20. He was cycling to the York cycle ral­ly when a motorist col­lid­ed with him.

“He was just 72 so it’s come as a real shock.

Nor­man had a well deserved rep­u­ta­tion for fine crafts­man­ship and engi­neer­ing, and had an infec­tious love of all things cycling. His bikes have been many peo­ple’s intro­duc­tion to cycling and his exper­i­men­ta­tion with dif­fer­ent cycle forms appealed to hard core enthu­si­asts and occa­sion­al rid­ers alike. I’ve been the lucky own­er of a cou­ple of his bikes, one of which I bought when I was 18 and I still have but is sad­ly gath­er­ing dust in the hut.

Both Nor­man and his late wife Mar­i­on were both found­ing mem­bers of South Tyne­side Friends of the Earth.

Whilst he died rel­a­tive­ly young in mod­ern terms, his con­tin­ued cycling proved that you’re nev­er to old to get on your bike. Maybe it’s time I dust­ed off mine.

A true local hero.”

MARIE VESCO

Marie Vesco was killed by a car on Wednes­day 4th June while cycling to Brighton. Active in var­i­ous Lon­don social cen­tres, Whitechapel and Brix­ton Food Not Bombs, she now had plans to open a new social cen­tre.

Marie was part of a group of twelve cyclists who left Brix­ton in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing to join the Smash EDO demo. They were on the A23 by Burgess Hill when an impa­tient gas guz­zling imbe­cile swerved across two lanes straight into Marie, then anoth­er car hit her. She died instant­ly, there was noth­ing her friends could have done. The dri­ver of the sec­ond car got straight on his phone as soon as he came to a halt — not for an ambu­lance but to call his lawyer. He then start­ed push­ing Marie’s mates around. One dri­ver has been arrest­ed.

Manchester & London Critical Masses this Friday + South London

OH MY!
It’s CRITICAL MASS this Friday.…how ace is that?

Fri­day 27th June 6pm
Cen­tral Library Man­ches­ter

After­wards we’ll have a BBQ and hang out a park, so bring BBQ’s, food, music, drinks etc. (veg­an BBQs pre­ferred as then it can be acces­si­ble to every­one!)

OH MY!
It’s CRITICAL MASS this Friday.…how ace is that?

Fri­day 27th June 6pm
Cen­tral Library Man­ches­ter

Manchester Critical MassAfter­wards we’ll have a BBQ and hang out a park, so bring BBQ’s, food, music, drinks etc. (veg­an BBQs pre­ferred as then it can be acces­si­ble to every­one!)

A total­ly ace bike ride around our city to meet oth­er cyclists and ride on our roads…For a few hours once a month we can show how beau­ti­ful our city can be when bicy­cles, instead of cars, dom­i­nate the roads.

it’s such a nice and socia­ble and fun way to spend a Fri­day evening on a bicycle..wow. so ace. and now we’re get­ting big­ger and bigger..someone said they count­ed at least 150 peo­ple on the one last month, how ace is that?!!. come and be part of our love­ly friend­ly cruise around..to col­lec­tive­ly enjoy the beau­ti­ful expe­ri­ence that is rid­ing a bike.

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Peo­ple’s com­ments about Man­ches­ter Crit­i­cal Mass

“…it’s bril­liant. Usu­al­ly I’m charg­ing around on my bike, get­ting where i need to go as fast as i can. Crit­i­cal mass is dif­fer­ent. It’s about enjoy­ing rid­ing. It’s the most relaxed ride around the city I’ve ever had. Where all my wor­ries and fears float away. And I’ve met some love­ly peo­ple too”

“I was scared it would be some angry bike mil­i­tants but every­one is so friend­ly and the ride is fun no aggro at all. See you next month!”

“it’s quite some­thing to have that many peeps rid­ing round at once.”

“Crit­i­cal Mass some­times has a rep­u­ta­tion for being an angry rab­ble of cyclists that want to string up any car dri­vers they see. This is not true of Man­ches­ter Crit­i­cal Mass, it is a fluffy mass of peo­ple that like to have fun on bikes, there are often have chil­dren with us and a bicy­cle sound sys­tem to add to the par­ty fun atmos­phere. As well as being fun and
a social event it is also to show how great a car free city will be. This is achieved every month by show­ing motorists an alter­na­tive, yet crit­i­cal mass Man­ches­ter does­n’t aim to annoy dri­vers we want them to join us..”

“I spend all month, every month, rid­ing around behind exhaust pipes and swerv­ing out of the way from angry, dis­re­spect­ful dri­vers, I live in a world that is dying from cli­mate change..only the oth­er day it was announced the white rhi­no is extinct, it tears me up inside. Rid­ing a bike isn’t going to change all of that instant­ly but I believe that not only does it mean less cars on the roads but rid­ing a bike also gives a feel­ing of con­nec­tion with one’s sur­round­ings and oth­er peo­ple and through this we can start to act in oth­er ways that can cre­ate social change”

“Crit­i­cal Mass isn’t a place to vent the anger that comes from hav­ing to deal with cars (I don’t think), because it’s nice to, instead, spend that time enjoy­ing rid­ing my bike. Some­times it can feel so alien­at­ing rid­ing a bike sur­round­ed by so many motorists. Crit­i­cal Mass shows that we are not alone and that we are grow­ing. It’s the most fan­tas­tic piece of direct action I’ve ever done- I want there to be less cars on the roads and by
being one less car there is!!!”

(tak­en from emails we’ve received)

============

Crit­i­cal Mass in Lon­don for Marie this Fri­day

Assem­ble under Water­loo Bridge 6pm on Fri­day

The Crit­i­cal Mass in Lon­don will attempt to go all the way to Brix­ton to cel­e­brate the life of Marie, who was killed by 2 cars on her way to the demon­stra­tion against the arms trade in Brighon, see:

https://indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/london/2008/06/400604.html

Assem­ble under Water­loo Bridge 6pm on Fri­day

============

South Lon­don crit­i­cal mass?!

The first ever south Lon­don Crit­i­cal Mass is hap­pen­ing on Fri­day 4th of July, and every first Fri­day of the month there after.

It will take place @ 6.30, start­ing from Peck­ham library.

Help cam­paign for safer roads for cyclists. All oth­er human pow­ered trans­port wel­come too!
Mas­sive rolling sound sys­tem pro­vid­ed by rawkus rick­shaws.

arrest charges dropped — round-up: Fossil Fools Day & M1 Conspiracy

As with the major­i­ty of protest arrests (if you do a NO COMMENT inter­view), though there’s been a load of peo­ple arrest­ed recent­ly, they’ve released with­out charge, on bail to return to a police sta­tion.

This gives the CPS time to decide what to do, but also hin­ders protest because the police can dic­tate puna­tive bail restric­tions.

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M1 Con­spir­a­cy Case Thrown Out

1st May 2008

As with the major­i­ty of protest arrests (if you do a NO COMMENT inter­view), though there’s been a load of peo­ple arrest­ed recent­ly, they’ve released with­out charge, on bail to return to a police sta­tion.

This gives the CPS time to decide what to do, but also hin­ders protest because the police can dic­tate puna­tive bail restric­tions.

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M1 Con­spir­a­cy Case Thrown Out

1st May 2008
Sev­en cli­mate camp activists against the widen­ing of the M1(1*) had the case against them dis­missed from Sheffield Crown Court yes­ter­day. Charged with con­spir­a­cy to cause a pub­lic nui­sance Judge Robin­son said that: “there was not a jot of evi­dence” for a jury to infer an endan­ger­ment of any mem­ber of the pub­lic.

Sev­en cli­mate camp activists against the widen­ing of the M1(1*) had the case against them dis­missed from Sheffield Crown Court today. Charged with con­spir­a­cy to cause a pub­lic nui­sance Judge Robin­son said that: “there was not a jot of evi­dence” for a jury to infer an endan­ger­ment of any mem­ber of the pub­lic.

Arrest­ed over a year ago the pro­test­ers had their hous­es raid­ed with prop­er­ty such as com­put­ers and phones tak­en and held for the dura­tion of the inves­ti­ga­tion.

This rul­ing in the midst of a crack down (2*) on green protest sets a prece­dent for polic­ing of envi­ron­men­tal demon­stra­tions. The Judge resound­ing­ly reject­ed the pros­e­cu­tion’s argu­ment that the hang­ing of ban­ners over the motor­way would con­sti­tute a pub­lic nui­sance. He went on to say: “that all of the avail­able mate­r­i­al (pre­sent­ed to
the court) is con­sis­tent only with peace­ful protest.”

Cam­paign spokesper­son Dr Julie White, a GP from Sheffield, said: “this is vic­to­ry for the right to protest in the face of gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy of expand­ing roads, run­ways and coal-fired pow­er sta­tions in a time of cli­mate cri­sis.”

The activists say that the expe­ri­ence has not deterred them from tak­ing action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change and will be attend­ing the Camp for Cli­mate Action(3*) at Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in Kent this August.

Con­tact Julie White on 0779851073.

NOTES FOR EDITORS
1*) The Depart­ment of Trans­port have decid­ed against widen­ing the M1 any fur­ther: http://www.nowideningm1.org.uk/

2*) this month the Sun­day Her­ald report­ed that pro­tes­tors in Scot­land had been harassed by police after peace­ful demon­stra­tions: http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2210574.0.protesters_police_treated_us_like_terrorists.php

3*)The Camp for Cli­mate Action went to Heathrow last sum­mer over the build­ing of a third run­way this year it will pitch up at Kingsnorth over the poten­tial build­ing of the UK’s first new coal-fired pow­er sta­tion for 30 years:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/

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Bac­ton gas ter­mi­nal 19

On 1st April, EF!ers block­ad­ed the gas ter­mi­nal at Bac­ton to cel­e­brate Fos­sil Fools Day. The police tried to arrest every­one, and got 19 peo­ple. For a full report, see http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20420

Due to return to a rur­al Nor­folk police sta­tion, peo­ple were keen to phone up the police sta­tion to find out what was hap­pen­ing. The police had not tak­en any deci­sion, and a few days before decid­ed to drop charges against all but 3 peo­ple locked-on who got off with cau­tions.

—-

Police drop charges against Wun­der­man pro­tes­tors

The three activists arrest­ed fol­low­ing the inva­sion of Wunderman’s offices have had all charges against them dropped.

The envi­ron­men­tal­ists, from direct action group Lon­don Ris­ing Tide, had been charged with “bur­glary of pens, paper and phone calls”.

They were held after stag­ing a four-hour sit-in over two of par­ent agency Y&R’s key clients – Land Rover and BAE Sys­tems.

The action was part of a world­wide cam­paign against cli­mate change, dubbed Fos­sil Fools Day. In the UK, the group also staged demon­stra­tions out­side Porsche deal­er­ships, the head office of E‑on, and a coal mine in Wales.

The three activists man­aged to get into the Y&R build­ing –Greater Lon­don House on Hamp­stead Road, NW1 – by pos­ing as exec­u­tives from a new­ly-pri­va­tised wing of the MoD called Har­rion­Pro­jects, a spoof com­pa­ny whose cen­tre­piece is the Har­rion, a civil­ian ver­sion of the Har­ri­er Jump-Jet.

Once inside, they bar­ri­cad­ed them­selves into the con­fer­ence room, oppo­site Wun­der­man EMEA chief exec­u­tive Mar­cus Starke’s office.

Demo against E.ON, 16th July, London

Join the Green­wash Guer­ril­las to show that E.ON’S green­wash won’t wash!
Wednes­day, 16th July, 8.15 AM, Lon­don

Greenwash Guerillas logoJoin the Green­wash Guer­ril­las to show that E.ON’S green­wash won’t wash!
Wednes­day, 16th July, 8.15 AM, Lon­don

With two weeks to go before the Camp for Cli­mate Action at Kingsnorth, E.ON are spon­sor­ing a cli­mate sum­mit designed to help indus­try lead­ers ‘keep stake­hold­ers engaged’. Just like their plans for ‘clean coal’ at Kingsnorth, this is green­wash of the high­est tox­i­c­i­ty: a laugh­able-if-it-weren’t-so-trag­ic attempt to dis­tract us from the fact that E.ON are plan­ning to build the first coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in the UK for over thir­ty years. And that, in a time of unprece­dent­ed cli­mate cri­sis, is an unac­cept­able insan­i­ty.

This hot-air-fest can­not pass with­out a vis­it from… the Green­wash Guer­ril­las!

Don a white painter’s suit and come on down to the Busi­ness Design Cen­tre in Isling­ton to join a crack team of green­wash detec­tors. We will be cor­don­ing off the area and warn­ing sum­mit del­e­gates about the high lev­els of tox­ic green­wash leak­ing from the build­ing. (We sus­pect its source to be E.ON Man­ag­ing Direc­tor Bob Tay­lor, who’s got a top spot on the pan­el.) To get a sense of what the demo will be like, check out the Green­wash Guer­ril­las in action here: www.risingtide.org.uk/node/250

This should be a fun, sub­ver­sive demo, with the Camp for Cli­mate Action, Ris­ing Tide, Peo­ple and Plan­et, Earth First! and WDM all help­ing to spread the word. Join us and help show E.ON that our actions won’t be con­fined to Kingsnorth this August. Cli­mate Campers will go wher­ev­er we need to and do what­ev­er it takes to shut down Kingsnorth – per­ma­nent­ly.

Where: Busi­ness Design Cen­tre, 52 Upper St, Lon­don N1 0QH

When: Wednes­day, 16th July, meet 8.15AM in front of the Busi­ness Design Cen­tre

Bring if you can: a white painter’s/boiler suit and any home-made green­wash detect­ing devices you can think up (eg. part of an old hoover, a remote con­trol, a hair dry­er paint­ed green – get cre­ative!) If you can’t bring these things, not to wor­ry, extras will be on hand.

More info: info@climatecamp.org.uk / 07961 917 535
(Get in touch if you’re com­ing from out of town and need accom­mo­da­tion the night before)

Help spread the word — fly­ers (4 fit per piece of A4 — great on green paper) and poster avail­able at

»GGs Leaflet — Front
»GGs Leaflet — Back
»GGs Poster

www.climatecamp.org.uk
www.greenwashguerrillas.org.uk
www.risingtide.org.uk
www.stopkingsnorth.org.uk
www.peopleandplanet.org.uk
www.earthfirst.org.uk

Squat news — London, Cambridge

12.06.2008

Bowl Court Social Cen­tre Days Are Num­bered — Lon­don

12.06.2008

Bowl Court Social Cen­tre Days Are Num­bered — Lon­don

The court­ing hear­ing today ruled in favor of the prop­er­ty devel­op­ers claim­ing own­er­ship of the derelict ware­house in Bowl Court that has been used as a rad­i­cal social cen­tre since open­ing 23rd March. The David vs Goliath case was clear­ly moti­vat­ed by Ham­mer­sons desire to pre­vent the new social cen­tre becom­ing a hub for the local cam­paigns against their pro­posed devel­op­ment for the area, the biggest devel­op­ment in Lon­don since Dock­lands in the eight­ies.

The vic­to­ri­an social cen­tre is locat­ed in the Shored­itch Street Con­ser­va­tion area and pre­vi­ous attempts to obtain plan­ning con­sent for demo­li­tion have been refused. The neigh­bor­ing ware­house was knocked down with­out plan­ning per­mis­sion by Gam­ma City Devel­op­ments which was pur­chased by Ham­mer­son, along with vast tracts of lands ear­marked to become a for­est of glass sky­scrap­ers over the next ten years. Num­ber 6 Bowl Court was left emp­ty for years with a gap­ing hole cut in the roof and deep exca­va­tions dug around it’s exter­nal walls, appar­ent­ly with the aim of speed­ing up it’s decay to jus­ti­fy future appli­ca­tions for demo­li­tion.

Although at least two oth­er squat­ters occu­py near­by prop­er­ties which Ham­mer­son claim to own, the attempts to evict Bowl Court came about only as it became appar­ent that the social cen­tre was becom­ing involved in the local cam­paigns against the rede­vel­op­ment plans for the area. The com­pa­ny had been informed of the occu­pa­tion on the 24th March but only made moves to repos­sess the prop­er­ty three weeks ago.

In court, the defen­dants ques­tioned the evi­dence pre­sent­ed by the claimants regard­ing own­er­ship. Their land reg­istry title was con­tra­dict­ed by titles known to be held by oth­er com­pa­nies. There was also issue over whether the notice of the pro­ceed­ings had been cor­rect­ly served as res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty requires five days clear notice but only three had been giv­en. With no pro­fes­sion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion, the defen­dants were unable to put togeth­er a robust defense and also found them­selves threat­ened with over £21,000 in costs. How­ev­er, the judge also con­sid­ered the costs to be out­ra­geous­ly inflat­ed an choose to award just £2,500 in costs.

The future of the social cen­tre is now obvi­ous­ly in doubt but in the mean­time events con­tin­ue as nor­mal. See http://www.bowlcourt.co.nr for details.

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Mill Road Social Cen­tre May Stay For Flip­pin’ Ages — Cam­bridge

A pos­ses­sion order was grant­ed to Tesco today in court, yet rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Mill Road Social Cen­tre had appar­ent con­fir­ma­tion of indef­i­nite leave to remain from Tesco’s solic­i­tors.

About 20 social cen­tre groupies went to court today dressed in all our wet fin­ery and had a friend­ly bit of ban­ter with the Tesco legal rep­re­sen­ta­tive and the judge. The judge decid­ed that, although we point­ed out in our defense that their claim was­n’t accu­rate and so should be thrown out, she was hap­py to quick­ly amend it in court. This meant that we no longer had a defense as that was the only way our legal assis­tance had found for reject­ing the claim. So, the judge award­ed Tesco the pos­ses­sion order, as we thought they might.

We raised the issue of Tesco stat­ing that they did­n’t want to apply the pos­ses­sion order imme­di­ate­ly, they just want­ed hold of it. The solic­i­tor again con­firmed that this was the case.

SO, net result, as far as we know, we can remain in there doing fun things until Tesco want to get the builders in, hope­ful­ly some­time nev­er. Obvi­ous­ly it’d be use­ful to keep open some kind of dia­logue with Tesco about when they’re going to move in and we’ll look into that, how­ev­er the ear­ly hope is that we actu­al­ly have the space for a num­ber of weeks and can get crack­ing in earnest to make it even more love­ly and use­ful.

The solic­i­tor said in court that “Tesco has no use today for the premis­es.” to which the judge replied “So they are in no posi­tion to com­mence rede­vel­op­ment at this moment?”, and the solic­i­tor answered “No.”. So if that’s right, and if they do want to wait on the plan­ning process before try­ing to evict us, it could be a long long time. Hur­rah! 🙂 It also means they were fib­bing when they said they could open a store “tomor­row” in the evening news. Cheeky blighters.

millroadsocialcentre@lists.riseup.net
http://millroadsocialcentre.wordpress.com

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social cen­tre attacked (again)

15.06.2008
At about half 1 this morn­ing the mill rd social cen­tre was attacked for the sec­ond time in a week. Thugs armed with an iron bar smashed win­dows and dam­aged vehi­cles in attempt to intim­i­date the occu­pants, then drove off. No Pasaran.
———-

New autonomous and cre­ative social space in South Lon­don

The Chapel project is an autonomous and cre­ative social space sit­u­at­ed in the heart of Nun­head. The space is used for all kinds of cre­ative and social­ly mind­ed work­shops and events. Our main aim is to pro­vide afford­able cul­tur­al activ­i­ties to peo­ple, pro­mot­ing cre­ative inter­ac­tion and there­fore social change.

Come and get involved. What­ev­er ideas, mate­ri­als or pos­i­tive ener­gies you can share would be great whether its run­ning a work­shop, show­ing your art work, or just spread­ing the word. We hope to see you soon.

http://www.chapelproject.com

Women and Trans DIY-SQUATTING Weekend in London, 28th-29th June

This is a call­out to all women and trans-folk that would like to be involved in a week­end of work­shops around diy-squat­ting

We plan to take advan­tage of all the usu­al chal­lenges that semi-derelict build­ings pose as a plat­form for shar­ing our knowl­edge, skills, and expe­ri­ence in all the tasks relat­ed to open­ing and main­tain­ing a healthy and hap­py squat!

This is a call­out to all women and trans-folk that would like to be involved in a week­end of work­shops around diy-squat­ting

We plan to take advan­tage of all the usu­al chal­lenges that semi-derelict build­ings pose as a plat­form for shar­ing our knowl­edge, skills, and expe­ri­ence in all the tasks relat­ed to open­ing and main­tain­ing a healthy and hap­py squat!

These are all the areas that we’ve thought of so far, but more ideas are always wel­come:

* Elec­tric­i­ty
* Plumb­ing
* Gas
* Secu­ri­ty- doors/locks etc
* Bar­ri­cad­ing
* Legal
* Deal­ing w/ cop­s/own­ers- talk about experience/share tac­tics
* Women/Trans squat­ting- open dis­cus­sion on expe­ri­ence of squat­ting from a wom­en/­trans-per­spec­tive.
* Sus­tain­able ener­gy

All lev­els of expe­ri­ence in any of the above areas are wel­come, and even if you have no expe­ri­ence in any of the prac­ti­cal, diy-relat­ed areas, we hope to have a plat­form to share
expe­ri­ences, sto­ries and advice relat­ed to all aspects of squat-liv­ing from a trans/woman’s per­spec­tive.

Please get in touch if you’d like to help out at all in organ­is­ing this week­end — We’ll need help find­ing a suit­able space and prepar­ing it for the week­end, pub­li­cis­ing the gath­er­ing, and then run­ning work­shops on the week­end itself, as well as col­lect­ing and prepar­ing food.
We also hope to pro­vide child­care (on a rota-basis), so please let us know if you can help with that.

This gath­er­ing will be held on the week­end of the 28th — 29th June.

You can e‑mail us at diy_squatting@riseup.net

Please spread the word!

**Let us know if you would like to be sent leaflets**

Cancellation of London Dongria Kondh tribe picket following targets disinvestment from Vendanta

The Sur­vival demon­stra­tion out­side Coutts Bank pre­vi­ous­ly adver­tised on this web­site planned for the 10th June has been can­celled. In reac­tion to the planned pick­et Coutts has just informed Sur­vival that they no longer hold shares in Vedan­ta, the British-based com­pa­ny whose planned baux­ite mine will dev­as­tate the lands of Indi­a’s Don­gria Kondh tribe.

The Sur­vival demon­stra­tion out­side Coutts Bank pre­vi­ous­ly adver­tised on this web­site planned for the 10th June has been can­celled. In reac­tion to the planned pick­et Coutts has just informed Sur­vival that they no longer hold shares in Vedan­ta, the British-based com­pa­ny whose planned baux­ite mine will dev­as­tate the lands of Indi­a’s Don­gria Kondh tribe.

Sur­vival is con­tin­u­ing to lob­by oth­er Vedan­ta share­hold­ers, as well as the com­pa­ny itself.

For more infor­ma­tion, please go to http://www.survival-international.org/tribes/dongria

Report fol­lows of pick­et last week.

Sur­vival protest — ‘Fins­bury prof­its from tribe’s destruc­tion’
28 May 2008

Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al this morn­ing held a demon­stra­tion out­side the Lon­don PR com­pa­ny FINSBURY, a sub­sidiary of glob­al adver­tis­ing com­pa­ny WPP. The protest high­light­ed Finsbury’s involve­ment with British min­ing giant Vedan­ta, which is set to destroy one of India’s most iso­lat­ed tribes – the Don­gria Kondh.

Car­ry­ing plac­ards that said ‘Fins­bury prof­its from tribe’s destruc­tion’, demon­stra­tors hand­ed leaflets to Fins­bury employ­ees as they arrived for work, urg­ing them to per­suade Fins­bury to resign their account with Vedan­ta.

Vedanta’s sub­sidiary, Ster­lite, plans to mine alu­mini­um ore from the Niyam­giri moun­tains in Oris­sa, India, where all of the 8,000 Don­gria Kondh live.

The Don­gria Kondh vehe­ment­ly oppose the mine. Jitu Jake­si­ka, a Don­gria spokesper­son, said, ‘We will become beg­gars if the com­pa­ny destroys our moun­tain and our for­est so that they can make mon­ey. We will give our lives for our moun­tain.’

The Don­gria Kondh have lived on the slopes of Niyam­giri since time immemo­r­i­al, and are total­ly depen­dent on its forests. They view the moun­tain as sacred, grow crops on the slopes, and gath­er wild fruit in the dense forests.

Whaling protester scales embassy — court update

4 June 2008 update (main sto­ry below):
Con­di­tion­al dis­charge of four months and ordered to pay £100 costs after being con­vict­ed of tres­pass.

Wyness told the court staff at the embassy had giv­en him per­mis­sion to protest out­side the build­ing.

4 June 2008 update (main sto­ry below):
Con­di­tion­al dis­charge of four months and ordered to pay £100 costs after being con­vict­ed of tres­pass.

Wyness told the court staff at the embassy had giv­en him per­mis­sion to protest out­side the build­ing.

He said they had giv­en him the invi­ta­tion when he had tied him­self to ban­is­ters inside the build­ing on a pre­vi­ous occa­sion on 25 Jan­u­ary.

The court was also shown footage which had been secret­ly filmed which showed a mem­ber of embassy staff sug­gest­ing it would be bet­ter to protest out­side the build­ing.

—

6 March 2008
A cam­paign­er protest­ing against whal­ing by the Japan­ese has been arrest­ed after chain­ing him­self to the front of the coun­try’s embassy in Lon­don.

Mar­tin Wyness, 50, of Here­ford, climbed the build­ing at about 0730 GMT and low­ered the Japan­ese flag to half-mast about 40ft (12m) from the ground.

He then unfurled a ban­ner say­ing “Japan stop your ille­gal whal­ing” before chain­ing him­self to the build­ing.

Police said Mr Wyness came down from the build­ing at 1047 GMT.

He was arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of crim­i­nal tres­pass.

His protest was believed to be timed to coin­cide with a meet­ing of the Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion which began on Thurs­day.

The three-day sum­mit, which is being held in Heathrow, will dis­cuss the future of whal­ing in Japan, Nor­way and Ice­land.

In Jan­u­ary, Mr Wyness and his 14-year-old daugh­ter Sophie were arrest­ed after tying them­selves to a stair­case with cable ties inside the embassy, in Pic­cadil­ly.

The charges against them were lat­er dropped.

Video of action